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Who Are We Fighting? Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Nigeria etc

“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. ” Tim O Brien, The Things They Carried

I was at a Coffee Bean in Los Angeles ordering a coffee. A woman was arguing with the cashier. She was blond with a British accent. She was angry because she wanted to put her chicken in the refrigerator while she drank her coffee. They explained to her that this was a kosher coffee shop and they could not take her food in the refrigerator. Now the reality is I don’t think any restaurant in America can put your personal food in their refrigerator due to Health Department reasons. She became very angry and yelled in my ear (I was next to her) to “Tell the rabbi to go f-ck himself.” I said that I preferred not to hear anti-Semitic comments while I was ordering my coffee. She replied quickly that I should “Go bomb Gaza.”

I don’t understand. The Palestinians know they are in the middle of a war and that Israel is targeting certain areas. Why are their children on roofs playing with pigeons? Why are they running around in the streets? Why are they not evacuating their homes and schools and protecting their children? We keep seeing horrific shots on CNN of children being killed and hurt . As a parent, I would put my kids safety first, no matter who told me to stay. Israel does not want to kill their children. They just want peace. They want the rockets and terrorism to stop. But it seems that Hamas is not protecting the people of Gaza and is more concerned with blowing Israel off the face of the earth. How do you solve that?

A passenger airline carrying two hundred and ninety eight passengers, eighty of them children, is shot down over Ukrainian air space. The bodies fell out of the plane along with toys and personal belongings. They fell on the children’s orphanage in Torez. It will be a sight those orphans will never forget, -teddy bears, dolls, those beautifully made European toys and naked bodies with their clothes blown off in the blast. The world is shocked but the war will still continue in the Ukraine.

In Nigeria it has been one hundred days since two hundred girls were abducted from their school by the Boko Haram terrorists. The International Community is horrified and it seems we can do nothing.

And what about the children in Somalia, Afghanistan, Syria? And before that in Rwanda, Liberia, Libya, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina? And World War II?

Are we still fighting the children of the world? Have we learned nothing from the past? Will innocent children always be casualties of war?

I can only feel compassion and hope that others do also. Hope is the only thing to hold onto when everything appears so dark. Life looks like a mess right now in our world. But as human beings, we have the capacity for goodness. We have the ability to think and talk and that has gotten us into trouble. We can only hope that same ability to think and discuss will help us find peace.

It’s when we feel it’s more important to hold our leaders accountable and make actual political movements with real action attached instead of putting more emphasis on keeping our nail appointments and making sure we’re on time to soccer practice that things will happen. When we realize finally that we all belong to each other and that there is no such thing as “them” and “us”, and that we cannot isolate ourselves from fear and oppression around the world. If we ignore it, it will find us in the worst way. We must actively participate in our own well being by getting involved and making the difference.

I read this blog and find myself with tears in my eyes, aching for the loss of so many parents, whose children will never grow up to know the joy of another sunrise, or the taste of their favorite fruit, or the touch of an other loving smile in their heart.

I find myself closing my eyes in prayer, wishing that some day, some way, we will find a path that is able to place humanity above capitalism and profit; and where no one believes they have an obligation to force their personal faith on others…

Thank you for writing, and putting your healing thoughts out into the world.